


figure drawing

by benfic



Category: Falsettos - Lapine/Finn
Genre: (no death tag bc no death but there's still U Know What), Angst, Fluff and Angst, M/M, also there's a ceramic mouse, basically:, because i won't stop being funny in the face of :D you know what
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-09
Updated: 2018-06-09
Packaged: 2019-05-19 23:58:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14883737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/benfic/pseuds/benfic
Summary: When I was still taking art classes, we were sometimes treated to the different volunteers posing in exciting ways for us to draw. They would hold the pose for about fifteen seconds, then immediately switch to a new one, so we had to get the bare-bones outline down as fast as we could, before they moved.Anyway-- things are different now, but Marvin likes to pretend nothing's changed.





	figure drawing

What Marvin thinks while he shoves through hangers is that Whizzer should be the one doing this; Whizzer is supposed to be here; Whizzer is supposed to be yelling and pushing things aside and going through Marvin’s closet when he isn’t looking to throw out what he calls “the worst stuff”-- making sure to clarify, each time, that he  _ has  _ to call it the worst stuff because everything else is just _ “bad stuff.” _

 

_ “Saw a box for donated clothes on the street yesterday,” Whizzer starts, the second Marvin walks in. This is a good opening move, but Marvin can counter. _

 

_ “I’m not a charity case,” he says, flinging his jacket at Whizzer. Then he puts his briefcase on the floor in front of the couch and leans back. “I like my--” _

 

_ “No, I was just wondering if that’s where you got that tie,” Whizzer says, smiling sweetly. He folds the jacket into a perfect square, holding his gaze to Marvin’s. Marvin snatches the jacket out of his hands and flings it away, forgetting about it instantly, sitting down on top of him; thank God for Whizzer’s button-up shirts and his chest, oh, to think Marvin lived so long without access to his-- _

 

And now Marvin regrets not taking Whizzer up on his offer to go out and buy clothes; his closet is full of dark green and off-tone maroon. He ends up going to Whizzer’s side, pulling out whatever he can find (Whizzer’s clothes have so few wrinkles sometimes Marvin thinks he’s doing something with Marvin’s laundry specifically, just to mess with him) and hoping it fits; for the pants he has to settle for something that had better have a good enough shape. He tries to cover the belt with his shirt, then remembers Whizzer doesn’t like seeing it untucked. He fiddles, twists things here and there, tries to pretend everything fits him properly; that’s right, he didn’t want to go shopping with Whizzer because going out with Whizzer would mean fighting out with Whizzer, and he knew what would happen then, and see? He was right all along.

 

The mirror does not help the situation.

 

Marvin has been cleaning out the apartment slowly; he sees something on the floor and puts it where it’s meant to be. This is  _ (was, is)  _  Whizzer’s job, normally, so when Marvin comes home from work now he can sometimes still think that this is the way it always has been, and the clean house is a sign of everything being alright after all, and from this angle couldn’t that shadow be Whizzer, waiting on the couch, reading? Couldn’t it be him after all?

 

(Ridiculous. Whizzer doesn’t  _ read.) _

 

Today Marvin’s bag holds a pawn that rolled under the couch, several magazines (don’t get your hopes up; they’re only porn), two of those bags of trail mix only Whizzer could love, and a ceramic mouse Whizzer got at a garage sale that Marvin is giving to him partially for the sake of not having to look at it anymore. He glances through all the different items, trying to gauge whether he will regret this tomorrow, whether he will notice all of these things missing and remember that Whizzer is missing, too, but there is no way of telling what is going to happen and he is so afraid of that, more than anything else at the moment. 

 

He goes back into the bedroom, because that calms him. There are still photos taped to the wall (since Marvin is a, quote, “cheapskate” who won’t pay for frames after they already broke up once), still that book Whizzer was making no progress on sitting on the bedside table. The same lamp with the chipped edge because Marvin knocked it over in his rush to get to the bed. There is still a pen, a notepad  _ (buy milk, find other blue sock, convince Marvin to get his ears pierced) _ , and that bag of clay-whatever face masks that smell like tropical dishwater hanging out in the half-open drawer on Whizzer’s side of the bed. Marvin has changed nothing, removed nothing-- 

 

He tenses. The thermometer-- hidden behind the lamp, he hadn’t noticed-- he keeps forgetting-- in a rush, he seizes the thing and throws it into the nearest cabinet in the kitchen, shaking slightly. One thing that is different. One thing that breaks the illusion. So now he’s changed something, something that changed everything already. Oh, fuck it.

 

_ “Are you sure--” _

 

_ “Don’t fuss over me, Marvin.” Whizzer reaches for his book and glances into it half-heartedly. “I feel fine.” _

 

_ “You have a  _ temperature,  _ if you would just let me--” Marvin wrestles Whizzer across the bed, not even really sure of what he’s trying to be allowed to do. Whizzer relents, eventually, panting, but he doesn’t have the proper look in his eye. Marvin lets go of his hands. “You feel fine,” he repeats, not believing it. _

 

_ “Yes,” Whizzer says, going back to his book. “I’m fine.” _

 

_ And Marvin thinks that if this is the hill he wants to die on, well, Marvin will let this go. It’s not the end of the-- _

 

The door slams as loudly as it can be made to slam. A few harried neighbors poke their heads out of their apartments; Marvin brushes past all of them and pounds the elevator button. The things he could say to them. Did he inconvenience them? Oh, what a misfortune, he has a--

 

(a  _ what? _ lover? boyfriend? friend?)

 

\--he’s  _ in the hospital--  _

 

Marvin hits the  _ DOWN  _ button on the elevator a couple more times (what a coincidence, just the way his entire life is heading), then runs. Suddenly, it is the most important thing in the world to get there as soon as possible; as soon as can humanly be done. Faster than that. He is certain, right now, that Whizzer is waiting for him, and it shakes him enough that he stumbles over the sidewalk and misses the handle on the car door more than once.

 

**

 

There is no greeting made for this. Marvin enters, finding Whizzer about as awake as can be expected, and Whizzer sits up just enough for Marvin to feel a stab of guilt for the extra time finding the right outfit, going through the house. Whizzer has been here, waiting. Again there is the surreality to Whizzer being so quiet, so still. 

 

“That’s my jacket,” Whizzer says. His eyes are so pretty.

 

“Nothing but the best,” Marvin responds. Doesn’t Whizzer see Marvin has no idea how to start this; it is Whizzer’s responsibility to start the fight, to take control? It’s supposed to be him who does this. It is supposed to be Whizzer’s opening move, it is supposed to be Whizzer who starts it all. It is supposed to be Whizzer, so Marvin can yell at him later when he claims that it’s Marvin who starts all their fights. It is supposed to be Whizzer, but they haven’t had to use fighting as a distraction in so long that going back to it seems like time travel.

 

“It doesn’t fit you,” Whizzer sniffs, which should be enough and isn’t.

 

“I know,” Marvin says, instead, and he adds what he’s brought today to the bouquet.

 

“What do I have to do to get roses?” Whizzer asks, and Marvin wants to skip to the end of the argument now, skip to the part after the fighting and the sex and right to where they are both breathing slightly out of tune with each other and Whizzer giggles stupidly and leans up to kiss somewhere unorthodox near Marvin’s cheek. Before-- well, after-- but before they knew what being worried really meant.

 

For now, Marvin is trying to find a way to say that roses are a waste, that they last for so short a time before they’re gone; and finding that there is no way for him to say it without hearing how he sounds. Tomorrow there will be roses.

 

“I’ve been practicing with Cordelia,” Whizzer says, switching the topic to the chess set on the little table beside him. “She’s better than you.”

 

“I’m sure,” Marvin says, pulling out the little black pawn and sticking it on the board. “Look what I found after  _ you  _ lost it.”

 

“Excuse me?” Whizzer sits up a bit further, jabbing a finger into Marvin’s chest.  _ “You  _ threw it.  _ I  _ said--”

 

“Well, if you hadn’t  _ cheated--” _

 

“Oh, grow up and take a joke--”

 

“--you’re still as immature as ever, clearly _ \-- _ ”

 

Whizzer coughs three times in a row, clinging to Marvin’s arm.

 

“--never know when enough is enough,” Marvin adds, lamely. Whizzer leans back, letting go of him.

 

“You win,” he says softly. And Marvin finds he doesn’t want that, not at all. He doesn’t like how pale Whizzer is: his face just left of looking straight ahead, static enough to trace.

 

“Whizzer,” he says, just for the change of Whizzer looking towards him. His mouth is dry. “I brought you-- something else.”

 

He fumbles through his bag, pulling out the ceramic mouse and sticking it on Whizzer’s bedside table. Whizzer looks at it for a moment, then reaches out to flick some dust off its round left ear. He picks it up, looking at it more closely, and then puts it back down.

 

“Really brightens up a room,” he says, which is the argument he made back when he brought it home from hell. It’s one of the few things that hasn’t fallen over in an argument or during sex (mostly because Whizzer put it high enough up that Marvin couldn’t possibly excuse destroying it that way), so in a way, it does make things look a little better. At least, slightly more like an elderly woman’s parlor. Whizzer adjusts it slightly on the table, like he’s getting ready to take a photo of it. Marvin did bring Whizzer’s camera yesterday, but it’s still hiding in the drawer, as far as he knows. Whizzer gives the ceramic mouse a long, hard stare. 

 

“You only wanted this out of the house--”

 

“I only wanted this out of the house, yes.” Marvin grabs the magazines, trying not to look at any part of them (even the spine seems vaguely sexual) and flops them onto Whizzer’s lap. “Speaking of.”

 

“You found those,” Whizzer says. Which is fair, because he was  _ meant  _ to put them somewhere Marvin would never see them again in his life.

 

_ “--and how do you think that makes  _ me  _ feel?” Marvin asks, shaking the magazine, which only makes it flop open to show more of those twenty-somethings with their well-oiled abdomens. “All these-- hairless teenagers--” _

 

_ “You’re pretty hairless,” Whizzer says, expectedly unconcerned. He looks in the mirrored doors of the closet, checking his face. “And they’re not teenagers.” _

 

_ “What is it about me that makes you need something  _ more?”  _ Marvin yells, throwing the magazine down on the floor. Whizzer turns, gauging. Marvin’s face is flushed, and his hands are shaking. “What can’t I do for you--” _

 

_ “Oh, you’re perfectly fine,” Whizzer says, and Marvin feels the way the fight is turning and unclenches his fists. “Except...” _

 

_ “Except?” he manages, hardly hearing himself. He’s waiting for the light; waiting for the signal to go, go, go-- _

 

_ “Maybe I just don’t want it to feel like I’m going through a car wash,” Whizzer says, and shrugs, immediately turns around to look back at himself. Marvin stomps forward and grabs Whizzer’s shoulder, spinning him around and slamming him against the nearest wall. “Ow.” _

 

_ “Like a  _ what?”  _ Marvin hisses, almost smiling, and then Whizzer looks up at Marvin through his eyelashes, and he’s grins. In the next five seconds, Marvin’s removed every item of brand-name clothing below Whizzer’s belt-- which is also gone-- _

 

“Yes,” Marvin says. “Keep yourself-- entertained.” He tries not to grin and fails.

 

“Doc Charlotte is going to kill me,” Whizzer says, flipping through the magazines like he’s browsing through a catalog. Marvin dislikes that specifically, and therefore stows everything in the drawer of the sorry excuse for a bedside table.

 

“I brought you food,” he says, reaching over to get the trail mix out his bag. He takes as long as he can with it, hoping he won’t have to see Whizzer’s reaction, but it’s still there on his face when he gets up. “You know-- it’s your favorite--”

 

(Don’t cry. Don’t cry.)

 

“I know,” Whizzer says. He puts the bags on the table with all the other well-wishing things. Food and flowers and ceramic mice. Marvin wrings his hands and looks into his bag, trying to broach the subject.

 

“I was thinking of staying the night,” he says.

 

“Where?” Whizzer says, which is a response so bad it shames Marvin into shutting up. Whizzer actually manages to sit up all the way;  _ “Here?” _

 

“Yes, here, and don’t--” Marvin is trying to find a way to tell Whizzer not to overdo it without implying that overdoing it means something different now from what it used to, when Whizzer could stay on his feet for hours, running around the block, playing ten games of racquetball, coming back to Marvin’s bed at the end of it all. “Sit back,” he manages, eventually.

 

Whizzer obeys, but rolls his eyes. 

 

“Stupid idea,” he says.

 

“I think it’s okay,” Marvin says, fixing a strand of Whizzer’s hair to pull it behind his ear. “I could take off work, too.”

 

“Oh, don’t--” Whizzer pushes Marvin’s chest so lightly that Marvin feels the need to take a step back. Then he strips off his jacket. “Oh, God.”

 

“I put a sign on the door,” Marvin says, now working on his shoes. He stumbles and bumps into the chair. 

 

“A sign?”

 

“Yes-- says not to come in.” Marvin looks down at himself, considering, then turns back to Whizzer. “Well?”

 

“Well?”

 

“Anything else?”

 

There’s that competitive smile. There are those fiery eyes. But it only takes another moment for them to fade, and Whizzer tears his eyes away from Marvin’s chest.

 

“No,” he says, and gestures. “Get over here.”

 

Marvin fumbles with the neatly-made bed, upsetting half the blanket to get in under it. Whizzer doesn’t seem to mind; he curls up next to Marvin and slots his head into the space between Marvin’s chin and his chest.

 

“What did you put on the sign?” he asks, and Marvin snickers. “Wow.”

 

“It was strongly worded,” Marvin agrees, and then moves to kiss the top of Whizzer’s head. “So what’s the verdict?”

 

“What, about staying?” Whizzer makes a big show of sighing, which quickly turns into a cough; he and Marvin both ignore it. “I  _ guess.” _

 

Marvin flicks him lightly. He makes an annoyed sound and cuddles closer.  _ Well, that’s okay,  _ Marvin thinks. This still Whizzer is the good kind of still Whizzer. He brushes Whizzer’s hair away from his face; tries to fix his cap. 

 

“What about food?” Whizzer mutters, half-asleep. “‘M not gonna be cooking for you.”

 

“I’ve thought of that,” Marvin says, feeling  _ very  _ clever. “You’ll have to eat all of yours, or it’ll go to me.”

 

(Actually, he’ll starve rather than eat Cordelia’s chicken soup. It is at least seventy-five percent dill, and he brought enough money for whatever might be in the area-- in an emergency, the vending machine downstairs.)

 

Whizzer snorts.

 

“Nice try,” he mutters, and Marvin gives him a squeeze. 

 

“It’ll be alright,” he says. “Everything will be alright.”

 

_ “All I want is you,”  _ Whizzer sings quietly, looking at Marvin.

 

“Oh, shut up,” Marvin says, and Whizzer laughs like he used to. Marvin grins despite himself; Whizzer back in motion. That’s his lover, there. There he is.  “And go to sleep,” he adds, because he is still trying to find a way to set up a sleep schedule for Whizzer, potentially by incorporating a system of timed naps, and it is  _ exactly  _ time for Nap #2. Which they are still pretending is normal.

 

Whizzer settles, holding onto Marvin like he’s a stuffed animal. Marvin lies back, and finds he doesn’t really mind. The mid-afternoon sun streams through the only window.

 

_ “Jason has a message for you,” Marvin mutters, almost dropping his jacket on the couch before he remembers. He is supposed to be on good behavior, so that Whizzer will agree to this.  _

 

_ It feels like a very uncouth form of bribery, in his opinion-- getting Whizzer to do things for Jason so that Jason will do things for Marvin. Ridiculous. What kind of a family is that? _

 

_ “Sure,” Whizzer says, which only annoys Marvin further. At least he’s ironing. “What’s up?” _

 

_ “He has an assignment,” Marvin says. “In  _ art  _ class.” _

 

_ (He may be gay, but he knows how a man is meant to feel about  _ art  _ class.) _

 

_ Then Marvin takes a deep breath. _

 

_ “To draw a family member.” _

 

_ “Sure,” Whizzer says, shaking out his jacket. Marvin’s jacket is still hanging off his arm, and he tries to covertly slide it onto the ironing board. Whizzer raises an eyebrow and hands Marvin a coat hanger. _

 

_ “You think that’s normal? To draw  _ you  _ for a family member? I mean, what is the class going to think? What is his  _ teacher  _ going to think?” Marvin goes on long enough that it takes him a moment to realize that the ironing board he’s declaiming to is empty, and Whizzer is trying to insert the iron into the only available spot on the top closet shelf. Marvin takes a good look at Whizzer’s ass from this vantage point, then moves closer.  _ “What  _ am I supposed to do with him?” _

 

_ Whizzer moves off his tiptoes to survey his work; the iron is hanging about one inch off the shelf. _

 

_ “You can’t really blame the kid,” Whizzer says, using the point of his finger to poke the iron into place. He takes the jacket from Marvin, who immediately crosses his arms. “I’m more worried about how I’m going to stay still for that long.” _

 

_ Marvin cracks a smile. _

 

_ “Maybe he’ll draw you playing racquetball,” he says. _

 

_ “Knowing him, he’ll probably draw me with you,” Whizzer snickers, lightly shoving Marvin. It sends him right up against the wall, anyway, where Whizzer begins work on unbuttoning his shirt. _

 

_ “Don’t even suggest that.” Marvin kisses the side of Whizzer’s head, then his nose, then his mouth; all to Whizzer’s irritated and squeaky complaints. “At least not  _ now.”

 

_ “Suggest what?” Whizzer mutters, and Marvin realizes that he’s forgotten, too, so he returns to work trying to unbutton Whizzer’s shirt across Whizzer’s efforts on his. “That’s not going to work,” he adds, and drops the last button to trace his hands across Marvin’s face, his neck; holding that sweet space between neck and back.  _

 

_ Marvin squirms, trying to keep his hands steady. _

 

_ “Hold  _ still,”  _ he says, trying to grab onto a stationary part of Whizzer, whatever that’s supposed to mean. “Just-- stop moving for one second-- hold still-- hold still.” _

  
  
  



End file.
